Alexander McQueen Brand Lives on!!

Despite the death, last week, of Alexander McQueen, the renegade fashion genius, his label will live on, according to reports from Paris.

A statement from the UK press office of Alexander McQueen released shortly after 5.15pm this afternoon, confirms the women’s autumn/winter 2010/2011 collection will be presented in Paris on Tuesday, March 9th and Wednesday, March 11th, as a private, invitation only, “salon” presentation.

The chairman and chief executive officer of the parent company, PPR SA, Francois-Henri Pinault, confirmed the brand will continue, according to AP, at a press conference and conference call in Paris today to announce the group’s 2009 full-year results.

Pinault paid homage to McQueen, who was found hanged at his Mayfair house, in London, last Thursday, calling the designer a “pure genius” and “a poet”.

“You understand, the Alexander McQueen trademark will live on. Fashion has lost one of its extraordinary people. He was one of the falling stars that comes across our generation (and) he is a person we will miss enormously.”

Pinault further told Drapers: ”His art went beyond the fashion world. Her had a great command of technique, he hid behind an armour of provocation.”

According to the AP report, the collection McQueen was working on before he committed suicide, distraught at the death a few days earlier of his beloved mother, will also still be shown during the Paris prêt-a-porter season, which opens in the French capital on March 2nd.

AP quoted Robert Polet, chief of PPR’s Gucci Group subsidiary – which owns 51 per cent of McQueen’s brand - as saying the collection the designer was working on before his death will be shown.

The show is scheduled to take place on the evening of March 9th, and has been booked to take place at La Conciergerie, the gloomy prison where Marie-Antoinette was held before she went to the guillotine.

Poignantly, this is the same location where McQueen staged his autumn/winter 02/03 collection, in March 2002, which featured howling wolves and a model in a hooded, velvet cloak, leading two grey wolves across the flagstones.

"We believe in the future of the brand," Polet told WWD. "Lee was very proud of the people working in his company, and so am I."

Polet revealed he had spoken with McQueen a few weeks ago, and during the conversation the two decided that the label had acquired solid brand recognition that went beyond the name of the designer. Apart from the main Alexander McQueen label, there is also a McQ diffusion line.

"'That will be my legacy'," McQueen said, according to Polet. "'That's something I will always leave behind'."

Meanwhile, as London Fashion Week opens tomorrow, a pall of sadness is expected to hang over the event and tributes have been planned.

“Lee” McQueen is credited with revolutionising London Fashion Week in the early 1990s, staging a succession of outrageous, confrontational and ingeniously conceived and cut collections, which put British fashion back on the global radar, before his label was sold to Gucci Group and he began showing in Paris.

He won the British Designer of the Year title four times and was awarded the CBE — Commander of the Order of the British Empire — by Queen Elizabeth II.

Re: Alexander McQueen Brand Lives on!!

I support the decision to show his current collection, but he was unique and his style was one of the rare genius in the fashion world that re-energized the industry. I feel like Gucci might be trying to "make a buck" by continuing it further than that. Without McQueen's direction and vision, how can any designer create anything but a shadow of his design. That said, I'm eager to see hi current collection!

Re: Alexander McQueen Brand Lives on!!

Well thats a total waste. Iam sorry but no one is capable of filling his shoes.He had some of the most unusual things I've ever seen. I loved his designs because it was almost like he was rebeling aganst the fashion industry.